Do children with and without autism spectrum disorder use different visuospatial processing skills to perform the Rey-Osterrieth complex figure test?
Kids with autism use step-by-step memory for complex drawing; give them staged visuals, not overview prompts.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Cardillo et al. (2022) watched kids copy and recall the Rey complex figure.
They compared kids with autism to same-age typical kids.
Eye-tracking gear showed where each child looked while they worked.
What they found
The autism group drew the picture in bits and pieces.
Their recall scores were lower and their plans looked messy.
Sequential working memory, not the big-picture kind, predicted their scores.
How this fits with other research
Kangas et al. (2011) saw the same piecemeal style years earlier.
Ramona adds the new clue that weak sequential memory drives the style.
McGrath et al. (2012) seems to disagree: they found autism kids were faster at mental rotation.
The tasks differ. Rotation rewards quick detail spotting. The Rey figure needs organized planning.
Both papers are right; autism gives an edge on speed yet a hitch on layout.
Why it matters
When you ask a child with autism to copy a model, give step cards, not the whole picture.
Train sequential verbal cues like “top line first, then box.”
Save the big-picture talk for kids who already use it.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Visuospatial organization abilities are closely related to other visuospatial processing skills, such as visuomotor coordination, perceptual abilities, mental rotation, and working memory (WM). One task that enables visuospatial organization abilities to be investigated is the Rey-Osterrieth complex figure test (ROCFT). When examining visuospatial functioning, individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have proved capable of operating both locally and globally, depending on the sub-domain embraced, with a preference for a locally-oriented processing of visuospatial information. The present research aimed to establish whether different underlying visuospatial skills might account for performance in the ROCFT in children and adolescents with ASD, compared with typically developing (TD), by considering the role of local/global visuospatial processing. The study involved 39 participants who have ASD without intellectual disability, and 57 TD aged 8-16 years. The participants were administered tasks assessing visuospatial organization abilities, manual dexterity, visual perception, mental rotation, spatial-sequential, spatial-simultaneous WM, and visuospatial processing. Our results suggest that manual dexterity and visuospatial processing similarly explain performance in both groups, while differences in visuospatial WM account for the two groups' visuospatial organization abilities. Spatial-simultaneous WM predicted performance in copy and recall conditions in the TD group but not in the ASD group, while spatial-sequential WM only did so in the latter group, reinforcing the tendency of children with ASD towards local bias in the visuospatial organization domain. The implications of these findings are discussed. LAY SUMMARY: The visuospatial organization abilities of children and adolescents with and without autism were compared, considering their underlying visuospatial skills. Visuospatial organization impairments emerged for children with autism, who differed from typically developing children in the underlying visuospatial skills involved. Given the crucial role of visuospatial organization abilities in everyday life, our results could inspire practitioners to develop training interventions that take into account the strengths and weaknesses of individuals with autism.
Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, 2022 · doi:10.1002/aur.2717